Media outlet teases Mao Asada about her English
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on April 12th, 2007
Recently there was a video captured on YouTube which was basically a fluff piece with no news content but a lot of things that many in the public seem to enjoy consuming in Japan. Among them:1. Eigo (English)2. Mao Asada3. “gaijin”Here’s the video:
You can actually learn a little bit about Japanese society by watching this video. However, I think even if you speak Japanese, it’s not immediately apparent what’s going on in this video, which for some in Japan is probably very entertaining. I’d like to attempt to explain what the video is really about.First, some background, Mao Asada appeared at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Japan recently for a one hour interview. There was some fairly sedate reportage of this interview in both the Japan Times and the Asahi Shimbun.During that one hour interview, we can assume, and in fact know from the newspaper articles, that many questions were asked. However, in the video above, none of the normal questions were reported. Instead, the focus is on either embarrassing questions or the difficult ones. Why? Well … let me guide you through the video:3:59 video begins3:58 Announcer introduces the topic by saying, and I’m only paraphrasing: “At the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Japan, Mao Asada took up the challenge of making greetings in ENGLISH, after which foreign reporters fired off, one after another, hard questions of the type that really aren’t asked by Japanese reporters.” As the announcer says this, a box at bottom of screen appears with the headline. It is “Mao was in a big pinch as she fielded hard questions from the reporters. She says ‘Hello’.” [That is, it’s big news that she said “Hello”, and the reason it’s big news is because it was in English! Sort of like making a big news story of some popular American sports player saying Konnichiwa to Japanese reporters in America. ]3:40 The news report begins, a male is now narrating the report. From the tone of his voice, he sounds like he can hardly contain his excitement. We get images of various “gaijin”, how strange and exotic they appear. Next we slip to a quick clip of the elegant Mao, “Japan’s pride”, skating in the ring. [At this point we can sort of see what the story is really about, Mao versus the “gaijin”.]3:20 A small box comes up in the left side of the screen again, it basically reads, “Mao says, ‘Hello Everybody’ in English and is then put in a big pinch by the hard questions [of the foreign reporters.]” The narrator stops talking while we take in the ambiance and tension and sheer exoticness of the scene. When is Mao going to speak English, when? The tension builds.3:08 The screen changes and we get pictures and examples of very sophisticated people who have visited the Foreign Corespondents Club in Japan. How different they all seem from the innocent Mao. Of course, all these serious people could speak English. We’re even told, what has to be an obvious falsehood, that every Japanese who has visited the club up until now has spoken English. The tension builds even more. Mao’s just a sweet innocent skater, and she’s going to speak English … oh my gosh!2:50 We come back to Mao, and we’re reminded that’s she’s been training in America. So can she do it, can she really speak English? Here it comes, she’s going to speak English, grab onto your seat …2:48 Then it comes, and she does it, she speaks English! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, not only can she skate but she speaks English, amazing, incredible. Cheerful music of success begins to play and everything is happy … but wait, how about when those “gaijin” start asking their severe questions. What’s going to happen then?2:38 Now we go to the first reporter whose asking a question. Just listening to the English sends shivers up the spine, the question sounds so hard. And look how foreign the reporter looks who is asking it. Wow. What’s Mao going to do? The reporter asks his question about which team does Mao prefer, The Yankees or the Red Sox? Both have Japanese players. The announcer says basically, “she got the question in ENGLISH but what does she do?”, we then listen to Mao answer the question … in JAPANESE … [audience at home reaction: Yappari, eigo ga muzukashii — Yup, English is just so hard.] The answer to the question is virtually ignored by the announcer, but he carefully states, “She answers the question in JAPANESE!”2:13 The announcer reminds us that Mao is being asked types of questions, “that Japanese reporters really just can’t ask.” [Wow, “gaijin” will ask questions like that?]. Some older guy asks Mao if she has a boy friend, then asks her if she’s been asked in the States about Japan’s war time history. She answers both answers with poise, first saying she’s been too busy for love, and then saying, everyone in America has treated her very graciously and friendlily. We then get some questions about the World Skating Federation, and this gets directed to Mao’s agent …0:22 … we’re told to look at the serious expression on Mao’s face … but that for the next question she’s going to smile. The questions comes: “what is your long term personal target?” What does Mao answer, she wants to be able to speak English. Aw gosh, she’s just like every other girl in Japan. Suddenly the happy, cheerful music comes back as Mao smiles. May her dream of being a good English speaker come true … [cut to an ECC commericial … okay that didn’t happen as far as I know but ….]. Also compare this long term goal to what was reported in the news articles given above.Okay, so what do I think of this video? It’s EVIL, I tell you, EVIL.Alright, I don’t really think that. I just thought it would be fun to say it.No, I’m not really sure what to think of it. But I do think it reveals certain subtle or perhaps not so subtle prejudices.While these prejudices do not really help “gaijin”, I feel very strongly that these prejudices have a negative effect on some or many Japanese. It’s very hard to explain how. I think the video (and many, many more like it shown everyday) reinforce certain values that limit a person’s horizons. It’s hard to really get a fix on what these values are but it’s worth the effort to try to get them down:1. English is hard.2. Only uppity people, who in their uppitiness are actually kind of crude, speak English well.3. It’s sweet and cute and lovable not to speak English well.4. Foreigners are exotic and unsophisticated. They lack poise and subtlety.5. Foreigners are intimidating.Anyway, that’s just for starters. Comments anyone?Really though, why should it be such a big deal whether Mao speaks English or not? It’s almost as if she were being teased about her English ability — at least the way an older brother might tease his little sister. It’s like soft media hazing.Many in Japan love this sort of stuff, and I think that’s very revealing.
April 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Good job on both her and her agent, brushing off the BS questions about ‘history,’ ‘your prime minister,’ and the skating federation. It was neither the time nor place for that kind of grandstanding garbage. The reporters who asked such stuff succeeded only in making themselves look insensitive and unaware that they were talking to a kid in high school.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I agree with Ken. That journalist was lacking in poise and subtlety, and by asking such aggressive questions to a kid like Mao he was intimating as well. If the FCC didn’t want themselves portrayed on Japanese TV as stereotypical, they shouldn’t have allowed that guy to ask so many grandstanding questions.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:20 am
The video makes an implicit comparison between western journalists and Japanese journalists.
It says that Japanese reporters can’t ask questions like the ones asked.
Really? I just don’t know.
I think that press conferences by Japanese reporters are far more scripted and organized. I know that the press clubs for politicians are tightly controlled. It may be that some people in the media want to ask outrageous questions, but there are institutions in place which prevent this. If it’s even true that Japanese reporters don’t ask sixteen year old media figures about boyfriends, then this is one plausible explanation.
Of course, the video just makes Western reporters seem kind of … I don’t know the right word to use here .. crude?
By the way, who were these reporters? Were they ice skating reporters? Or were they even sports reporters? Or were they reporters who usually cover ALL of Japan?
You know, maybe many of these reporters were not sports reporters and that was part of the problem. Some of them are responsible for reporting all news in Japan, and so they aren’t familiar with how to handle a situation like this. They might have been looking for some kind of angle to give them a news story. Again a more plausible explanation for the questions, rather than stereotyping Western reporters. (Were there any Asian reporters present at all?)
Maybe the guy who asked the question was even (financially?) encouraged to ask such questions by a Japanese source.
Who knows?
Again, the interview was an hour long. The Japan Times reports:
Her goal is to go for the gold in 2010. Would anyone have realized that watching the video? Not at all, they would have come away with the idea her primary goal was to improve her English.
Of course, this was probably on some kind of infotainment program. We are what we watch!
April 15th, 2007 at 6:49 am
So Mao can’t use English functionally.
That just puts her in with the majority of the population!
As for for the questions, many of them were out of place. A poor attempt by some journalists to ask the penetrating questions…
How about finding out if the poor girl is even interested in baseball before giving her a closed question on which team she likes? Again, too many assumptions made before a question is asked.
Conversely, how many times do you see the Japanese press asking a newly-arrived vistitor, “What’s your favourite Japanese food?” while snickering at their poor level of Japanese?
I’m not convinced this kind of infotainment rates any amount of airtime.
Of course, had the Japanese government declared that all foreign nationals would be rounded up an placed in internment camps on they day Matsuzaka faced Ichiro, guess which would have been headline news…
April 15th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Just as a follow-up, the Japanese media’s criteria for judging a person’s ability in the English language is often based on its perceptions of how confident that person appears in using English.
Some “tarento” are cited as being good English speakers, whereas they often have poor pronunciation, intonation and fluency, but speak loudly. Somehow, volume equates to ability…
April 17th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Going back to Matt’s last point, I believe it does do more harm than good:
For the same reason I believe native English speakers should receive harsher criticism for not knowing Japanese when they live in Japan (i.e. speaking very few words and being complimented), so should the standards for English, regardless of the setting. Playing off a few words of English as being “internationalized” and somehow more cultured is just overblown.
Like he said, “Sort of like making a big news story of some popular American sports player saying Konnichiwa to Japanese reporters in America.”
When are these things going to be givens in Japan? There are native-English speakers, now naturalized, running for public office in Japan; does news coverage have similar highlights saying something to the effect of: “Ooooh! His Japanese is so good!”?
If this is what the media and the public majority really want, then we’re probably better off knowing exactly ten words in Japanese.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Someone once asked:
“Why is speaking a few words in a foreign language more impressive than speaking it well?”
Matt and Turner have hit the nail on the head.
April 27th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Here’s a link to an article in Japanese which discusses Asada’s interview:
http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3110682/
I obtained this link from this blog entry:
Asada Mao and The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan